Methodist merger puts soup kitchen on front burner

The pieces of chicken, turning a perfect shade of golden brown and smelling like heaven, floated in the bubbling pots of cooking oil, but the cook wasn’t happy.

“I started at 7:30,” he said. “I should have started at 6:30. People are having to wait for their food, and I don’t like that.”

Resting for a moment, Rev. Iziar Lankford's hand is coated with flour after rolling chicken in the mixture for his noon soup kitchen Feb. 12, 2019. Lankford runs the Tuesday noon meal at Southwest Drive Community United Methodist Church in Abilene.(Photo: Ronald W. Erdrich/Reporter-News)

The cook was Iziar Lankford, who at 74 retired at the end of December after a lengthy career as a pastor in the United Methodist Church. But he didn’t retire as the cook —make that the chef — for the noon soup kitchen that he started and cooks for each Tuesday at Southwest Drive Community United Methodist Church.

Come and get it

Guests, who get a free hot lunch and carryouts, may be homeless or they may be unemployed or underemployed. It doesn’t matter. Anyone who shows up is fed. And Lankford doesn’t want them having to wait for the chicken to cook.

He loves serving people, and he wants it done right.

“It’s rewarding,” Lankford said. “It makes you feel good when you help somebody.”

The church itself has gone into retirement, too, although for now the feeding ministry remains there. When Lankford retired, the church in January merged with St. Paul UMC. The Southwest Drive congregation had dwindled in size to just a handful of people, not enough to sustain the church.

When the time came to make a change, Lankford was glad that St. Paul was the congregation chosen.

Both Lankford and the pastor of St. Paul, Felicia Hopkins, are African-American and Lankford wanted the Southwest Drive congregation to merge with another diverse congregation. Hopkins and Lankford, plus two other African-American United Methodist Church ministers, made history in the church’s Abilene District in 2013 when they were appointed to lead historically white congregations.

Rev. Iziar Lankford looks down as he coats chicken with a flour mixture Feb. 12, 2019. Lankford started and cooks for a noon soup kitchen every Tuesday at Southwest Drive Community United Methodist Church in Abilene.(Photo: Ronald W. Erdrich/Reporter-News)

In June that year, the bishop of the Northwest Texas Annual Conference of the UMC, Earl Bledsoe, who also is African-American, appointed Hopkins to St. Paul, Lankford to Southwest Drive, and Stephania Gilkey to Grace UMC, all in Abilene, and Paul Wright to Hamlin UMC.

Hopkins will be leaving St. Paul in June, when she will become superintendent of the church’s Amarillo District.

Hopkins said in an email that eight to 10 members of Southwest Drive had come to St. Paul and were treated to a welcoming reception. The merger was approved by St. Paul at a Jan. 16 meeting, Hopkins said.

“It has been wonderful to have them here at St. Paul,” Hopkins wrote. “The kids can be seen in Sunday School and some are new choir members.”

Now what?

The future of the building housing Southwest Drive Community UMC is unknown for the moment. George Price, Abilene District superintendent, explained that if the church had closed, the property would be held in trust by the Northwest Texas Annual Conference.

But since the congregation merged with St. Paul, rather than closing, the property now is under the umbrella of St. Paul UMC. If St. Paul decides to sell the building, Price said, there would be restrictions on now the proceeds could be used. The money couldn’t be used for something such as a capital campaign, Price said. It must be used for ministry.

Hopkins said several options are on the table, among them selling the property, opening a satellite church, or starting a new church--or something different.

“The first three plans have been presented to the Church Council,” Hopkins wrote in an email. “Whatever happens it is very clear that the proceeds or the building itself must be used for ministry, to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of Abilene.”

If the building is sold, Lankford vows to continue his lunch ministry somewhere else.

“Finding another place won’t be hard,” Lankford said.

Before being converted to a church, the property at 3025 Southwest Drive housed an insurance agency. The church was created by members of Fairmont United Methodist Church after their church on Palm Street burned in a Christmas Eve fire in 2006. The word “Community” was added to the original name in 2013, when it merged with Plum Street UMC, formerly pastored by Lankford.

Fairmont family

One of the members making the move from Fairmont to Southwest Drive was Virginia Fincher, now 96. She started going to Fairmont as a teenager with her parents.

After the fire, the congregation continued to meet in the fellowship hall, which wasn’t damaged, until moving to Southwest Drive.

The first Sunday after the fire, the congregation held a service in the parking lot, Fincher recalled. Fincher, her late husband, Bert, and others went grieve together over the church they loved.

“I miss it,” Fincher siad.

Now that Fairmont’s replacement church is merging with St. Paul, longtime members such as Fincher are facing another change. Fincher said she hasn’t decided definitely whether she will stay at St. Paul or attend another United Methodist congregation in town.

No soup at the soup kitchen

Also facing a major life change is Lankford, who preached his first sermon when he was 15 at his home church in Centerville in Leon County.

He graduated from the Centerville Colored School in 1962 and earned a degree in business administration with a minor in religion in 1967 from Wiley College, a historically black college with Methodist ties in Marshall.

After college, Lankford served in the Air Force, was in the real estate business in Houston, and taught at a community college in Houston. But that call to ministry never left.

“I felt the calling,” Lankford said, “and I went ahead and accepted.”

He comes from a long line of pastors, including five uncles and seven first cousins who either were Methodist or Baptist ministers. Lankford became a full-time minister in 1980. He was ordained in the old “colored” conference of the Methodist church before its merger in 1967 with the United Methodist Church.

Before being named pastor at Southwest Drive Community United Methodist Church, Lankford had served Plum St. UMC, a historically black church, for 11 years. It was there that he started his “soup kitchen,” although he never serves soup.

Lankford decides each Friday what his main course will be Tuesday — spaghetti and meatballs, fish, fried chicken (“everybody’s favorite,” he said), chili dogs or chicken spaghetti. He spends Monday shopping for the main ingredients and side dishes and doing meal preparation for Tuesday.

“It’s an all-day job,” he said of the Monday routine.

Lankford gets donations to help with the food ministry, but if he has to pay for everything out of his pocket, he does. He is determined not to disappoint the several hundred people who come by each Tuesday for a meal and fellowship.

Still his meal ticket

Lankford picked up his cooking skills as a child, starting at age 6, when he helped his mother prepare meals. He is so adept in the kitchen that the only time he measures ingredients is when he bakes a pound cake.

Everything else is by sight, taste and experience.

Lankford won’t give up his meal ministry, but he will be slowing down a bit. He will still preach occasionally and will preside at funerals and wedding. In his long career, Lankford said said he never has had a sick day and has only taken two vacations. That will change in May when he and two other men go to Africa for three weeks.

“It’s something I’ve always wanted to do,” he said.

Lankford also will spend more time with family. He and his wife, Jennifer, are parents of two grown children, a son who is a minister in California, and a daughter in Houston. They also have eight grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.

One thing Lankford won’t concede to aging. A former member of Southwest Drive Community UMC, Karen Reese, says Lankford is the Energizer Bunny.

“He is non-stop,” she said.

And that won’t change much in retirement.

“I never get tired,” Lankford said. “I’m not tired now — it’s just time.”